‘Homelessness and destitution should not be a side effect of being granted asylum,’ the British Red Cross said.
Photograph: Rebecca Vale/Alamy Stock Photo

People granted asylum in the UK are routinely driven immediately into homelessness and destitution because of Kafkaesque quirks in the system to deal with refugees, according to research conducted for the Guardian.

A survey of people granted asylum in 2016 and 2017 has revealed the devastating impact of homelessness among those who often believe gaining refugee status will be the end of their troubles. Instead, they often say the period after being granted protection produced even worse difficulties.

“The way the system works at the moment, homelessness and destitution are an inevitable consequence for many newly recognised refugees – and it’s completely avoidable,” said Lisa Doyle, director of advocacy at the Refugee Council.

The research, conducted by the Refugee Council for the Guardian, involved in-depth interviews with 54 people who had been granted asylum in 2016 or 2017 and had later sought help from the Refugee Council.

The interviews showed that sleeping rough and sofa-surfing were common experiences. Many people encountered such significant delays in opening bank accounts or obtaining the documents they needed to apply for work, housing or benefits that they were forced to sleep rough and plead for support from friends and charities.

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Of the respondents to the survey, more than half (31) slept rough or in a hostel or night shelter in the period after gaining refugee status. Interviewees said housing insecurity was a cause of great anxiety, with one person saying he attempted suicide multiple times.

“I don’t even want to remember what happened when I was granted asylum,” said one refugee.

“It was confusing, it was too much,” said another. “I had a panic attack in the jobcentre and they had to call an ambulance for me.”

The problem lies in the so-called move-on period after people are granted asylum. If they are living in Home Office-provided accommodation, they are given 28 days to leave after receiving refugee status. Also after 28 days, their asylum support payments of £36.95 per week are stopped.

Only one of the people interviewed for the study had a job by the end of the move-on period; one was studying, and just four were receiving benefits of any kind by the time their asylum support payments were stopped. The rest were without any form of income. The most common forms of support relied upon in this stage were friends and family (25 people) and charities and faith groups (20).

“The Home Office will give you refugee status, but not refuge,” said Franklin, 29, who was homeless for three months after he was granted refugee status in June 2016. “They gave me a country to live in, but they didn’t ensure I had somewhere to start my life. It’s a bit confusing, because they say, I’ll give you temporary accommodation while your [claim is being considered]. However, when you’re approved you have to fend for yourself.”

Franklin received his biometric residence permit promptly, but had to send it back because of a spelling mistake. He was forced to spend weeks sofa-surfing and was unable to work or receive benefits while the problem was sorted out. Eventually, after the Refugee Council intervened, he was allowed back into his asylum accommodation until his permit was reissued.

“I was stressed out,” Franklin said. “I was already depressed and sad that I can no longer go back home ... but on top of it I’m over here trying to find somewhere to live. I worried I would be sleeping on the streets.”

There is no official data showing how many people become homeless at the point they receive refugee status. The interviewees for this research were people who had approached the Refugee Council for help, so numbers cannot be extrapolated to the broader refugee community.

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However, the Refugee Council estimates that the number of people granted refugee status in 2016 who were at risk of destitution and homelessness as a result of bureaucratic delays could be “in the region of 9,000”. This is roughly two-thirds of the 13,468 people who were granted asylum or other protection visas in 2016.

“It is routine, I would say, that people transiting from asylum support into mainstream benefits experience destitution,” said Fabio Apollonio, UK development adviser for asylum support at the British Red Cross. “We believe that homelessness and destitution should not be a side effect of being granted asylum and permission to stay in this country, but that’s the reality we see across the UK, across the locations where we operate destitution support.”

In the first half of 2017, the British Red Cross supported 1,900 refugees who were destitute or homeless. Apollonio said homelessness and destitution among newly recognised refugees were “largely due to paperwork and administrative errors”, which was borne out in the research conducted by the Refugee Council.

Fourteen of the survey respondents waited more than four weeks to receive their biometric residence permit, with two people waiting more than six months for it to arrive. Fourteen respondents also waited more than four weeks for their national insurance number, meaning a significant proportion had not received documents that are crucial for applying for work and benefits by the time their asylum support payments stopped.

Refugees also reported difficulty opening bank accounts. Twelve people said they were refused by a bank because their identification card was not recognised, 13 had trouble because they had no proof of income and 18 because they had no proof of address, as a result of having to leave their asylum accommodation.

“I’ve heard of people going to three, four, five different banks and being turned away,” said Apollonio. “And it’s not about the different banks – individual branches react differently. It is a routine issue.”

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The move-on period came under fire in a report produced by the all-party parliamentary group on refugees in April this year. Thangam Debbonaire, Labour MP and chair of the group, told the Guardian that in “far too many” cases the system was failing vulnerable refugees, and that stories of people being forced to sleep rough after receiving refugee status made her “saddened and ashamed”.

Debbonaire said the fact that many refugees had not received all the documents they needed to apply for benefits or work by the time their support payments stopped was a clear failure of the system. “This is one of the key things we have recommended to the government: if on the day you got your status you [have] got all of those five [documents], it would be transformative, both for the asylum system and for the refugee, but also for the wider community.”

The government has committed to reviewing the move-on period and has been running a pilot programme in the north-east of England to aid the transition from asylum support to mainstream benefits. But it has not yet published results from this pilot or said whether it will extend the move-on period.